Family Ties
by lalapine
Summary: Jamie learns an important lesson


Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with SMK, WB, KJ, BB, etc. No infringement is intended.  
  
Summary: Jamie learns an important lesson  
  
This story is for Boots--who reminded me that I haven't written a fanfic in awhile. :-) So, since my boss was in meetings all day and my co-worker was home with the flu, I sat down at the keyboard and started to write, and this appeared...  
  
  
Author: Tammy M. Parnell  
E-mail: lalapine@aol.com  
  
Title: Family Ties  
  
He had never noticed before the little freckle next to her ear. Her soft brown hair was normally a curtain through which he rarely saw. He wished he could not see now.  
  
His gaze shifted to her slender hand, still beside her sleeping figure. Sleeping? He reprimanded himself. She's not sleeping; don't kid yourself, Stetson.  
  
A knock interrupted his dark thoughts. He looked up to see one of the best friends he'd ever had. Second to only the woman lying in front of him.  
  
"Billy," he acknowledged, returning his vision to his partner, the respirator she was attached to creating an artificial rhythm to his own pulse as he subconsciously matched his breathing to hers. Her chest rose and fell, over and over, but her eyes remained closed.   
  
"Lee, any change?" the lack of response was answer enough. "You need some rest. Go home. I'll stay."  
  
"Home to what?" He gently lifted her hand in his. "I can't sleep anyway."  
  
Billy walked slowly over to Lee and looked at his most enthusiastic agent lying stilly amid the bone-white bed sheets. He grasped Lee's shoulder. "If she was awake, she would yell at you for not taking care of yourself. She doesn't want to see you punish yourself like this, Scarecrow."  
  
Lee gently let go of Amanda's hand, pulling away from Billy's touch and walking over to stare out the window of the small hospital room. "And who else is there to blame?" His voice choked up and he fell silent.  
  
"It was a mistake, man. Things happen."  
  
Lee whirled around to face his friend, his superior. "STUPID things," he yelled, barely maintaining control. "What the hell was I thinking? I don't deserve them. They should have run screaming when they found out about me."  
  
"Dotty. The boys," Billy stated in acknowledgement. He watched his friend pace the length of the bed, his steps in tune with the beep-beep of the heart monitor. "You couldn't have known."  
  
"I should have. It was a possibility. But" he slowed his pacing, speaking softly, "I hadn't seen her in over a month, Billy. I just wanted to be close to her. I didn't take the time to--  
  
"I know."  
  
"She just assumed I had taken care of things. She wouldn't have thought I would be so careless."  
  
"They weren't home, Lee."  
  
"They came home!"  
  
"You can't change what happened."  
  
"No." He shook his head, the old Stetson stubbornness masking his features. "But I can prevent myself from ruining anything else."  
  
"You're talking crazy. You need some rest."  
  
"The hell I do! I need to get as far away from them as possible. I need to stop ruining their lives! Fax me the paperwork, Billy. As soon as I find out when she's going to wake up--" he paused briefly, wondering if the question should be "when" or "if", continuing haltingly, "I'm leaving. California, Mozambique, wherever. Just transfer me. Get me the hell away from here."  
  
"That's not what you want."  
  
Lee sat down in the hard brown chair beside her bed. "I want them to be safe."  
  
"It was an accident."  
  
"Of my doing!"  
  
"It could have happened to anyone."  
  
"Any government agent who thought he had a right to intrude on a normal family from the suburbs. Why did I ever give her that package?"  
  
Billy laughed in spite of himself. "Lee, you did everything humanly possible to keep Amanda away from the Agency. You were my lone wolf. But she was persistent."  
  
A hint of a grin flashed for an instant before disappearing. "Agents are not supposed to show emotion. Getting involved with your partner is taboo. How could I let that happen?"  
  
"You didn't let it happen. It just did. You and Amanda found each other for a reason. You were meant to be together. I have never seen you so happy as you have been this past year."  
  
"Never knew you were such a romantic, Billy," Lee commented wryly, absently turning his wedding band around his finger. "It was a year ago last month. Maybe Amanda getting shot is how we're going to celebrate our anniversary every year."  
  
"Lee--"  
  
"Don't, Billy."  
  
"Have you talked to him?"  
  
Lee looked up, startled. "No. I can't."  
  
"I know it's hard, I can't imagine the guilt you feel right now. But what's done is done. You can't change it. You can only help make it easier for Dotty and the boys."  
  
"That's what I'm trying to do."  
  
"By staying away?"  
  
"They don't want to see me."  
  
Billy glanced at his watch. "Is that why you come here at three o'clock in the morning? Because you're afraid to see them?"  
  
"I'm not afraid to see them. I just don't want to upset them. They know it's my fault that she's here. I don't want them to have to pretend to be nice to me when I'm the cause of their misery."  
  
"How do you think he feels?"  
  
A long pause. "Glad to be rid of me."  
  
"You know what I think?"  
  
"No, but I bet you're going to tell me."  
  
"Lee." Billy waited to continue until his colleague looked up at him. "That boy is not thinking that you're to blame. He's not hating you. He's hating himself. And he's thinking that you hate him. And that's why you're not with them right now."  
  
Lee shook his head. "No."  
  
"You're going to have to face up to this, Scarecrow. You may have left a loaded weapon within his reach, but he's the one who pulled the trigger."  
  
"It wasn't his fault."  
  
"You didn't know he was home."  
  
"But he was!"  
  
"Amanda told you he was spending the night at his friend's house."  
  
"Don't you blame her for this."  
  
"Lee it doesn't matter who's to blame. What matters now is that you and your family are there for each other. Yes, he repeated in response to Lee's look, YOUR family. You're their stepfather, Lee. They look up to you, they admire you. They love you. That's what having a family is all about. I know you feel that you were shortchanged growing up. Now's your chance to make up for the family that you never had. Be the father to those boys that you've always wanted for yourself. You can't walk away just because things got tough."  
  
A long silence followed. "You know, it's funny; I never noticed this before." Lee ran his hand softly over his wife's cheek, lingering briefly over the freckle.  
  
"Phillip did that."  
  
Both men looked quickly towards the door, startled by the young voice.  
  
Billy gave Lee a look that said "talk to him" as he moved towards the door. "Jamie," he acknowledged.  
  
"Hi Uncle Billy."  
  
Billy smiled and patted the boy's head. "Lee needs some company. I'll leave you two alone." He shut the door behind him.  
  
Jamie walked tentatively towards his mother, avoiding Lee's worried stare. "Hi Mom. I know it's late, but I couldn't sleep. I wanted to see you." He took a deep breath and looked up. "Hi Lee."  
  
"You should be at home in bed. I'll get your grandma." He stood and moved to the door.  
  
"She's not here," Jamie admitted. "I rode my bike."  
  
"All this way? Alone?"  
  
"It's not that far."  
  
"It's not safe out this late."  
  
Jamie ignored him and walked over to where Lee had been sitting. "You were talking about this scar, weren't you?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"To Billy. You said you'd never noticed it before."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I was really little, but I remember. Phillip took my toy dump truck from me, and I started crying. Mom gave it back to me, and she picked Phillip up to put him in his room. And he bit her."  
  
Lee forgot himself momentarily. "He BIT her?"  
  
Jamie smiled. "Yeah. Not very hard, but enough to make her bleed a little. She just has a small scar from where one of his big teeth was coming in." He looked up at Lee. "Do you think she's going to die?"  
  
The knot tightened in his stomach. "Your mom's tough."  
  
"Yeah. I wish I was tough."  
  
"You are."  
  
"Then why can't I stop crying?" He stared at his mother, afraid the familiar tears would well up again as they had every night since the accident, every time he thought of her.  
  
Lee's heart melted and he walked over to his stepson, kneeling before him so they were eye-to-eye. "Do you think I'm tough, cowboy?"  
  
The boy nodded.  
  
"Then why can't I stop crying?"  
  
Jamie glanced quickly at him. "You've been crying?"  
  
"My heart feels like someone is breaking it into little pieces. I've never loved anyone the way I love your mom."  
  
"I'm sorry I did this to her."  
  
Lee shook his head. "This was my fault, Jamie. You understand?"  
  
"I knew better. I just wanted to try on your jacket with the badge. I thought it would be funny. And the gun was there. I didn't I didn't think about it. I just wanted to hold it, like James Bond."  
  
Lee's voice was calm, soothing. "Why did you come home that night? Did you forget something?"  
  
A tear escaped his eyes. "No I Dave and me were playing hoops in his driveway. My back was to the road, but he told me to check out the cool car that drove by. So I looked. And it was you. You were gone for so long, I just wanted to say hi. So I thought I'd run home and surprise you. And then I screwed everything up."  
  
"You didn't screw anything up, Jamie. I know better than to leave a loaded weapon in the house. I'm the adult here. It's my responsibility."  
  
"But you told us, you and mom, over and over, guns are not toys. To stay away from anything about the Agency, that it's too dangerous."  
  
Lee patted his shoulder. "I can tell you from personal experience that the first thing a boy wants to do is exactly what you tell him not to."  
  
"Yeah, but this isn't like snacking before dinner or looking at dirty maga-" he stopped quickly, embarrassed.  
  
Lee couldn't help but grin. "Or like sneaking out in the middle of the night without telling anyone?"  
  
"Grandma was asleep."  
  
"I don't think your grandma can sleep any better than either one of us right now, cowboy."  
  
"You keep saying that it's not my fault, but--"  
  
"It's not."  
  
"Then why won't you talk to me? You don't ever come home, you never call us. I can understand why you'd hate me, but Phillip didn't do anything."  
  
Lee looked at him seriously. "I could never hate you or your brother, no matter what you do. I don't blame you, son. I blame myself. I thought you were better off not seeing me. I thought it was better if I stayed away. It took you so long to trust me, I thought I had broken that trust."  
  
"We need you, Lee. Mom needs you, too. Don't stay away. I won't ever touch your stuff again."  
  
Lee tousled his stepson's hair. "I have an idea. When your mom gets better," he paused only briefly, "Why don't I teach you how to shoot?"  
  
His eyes widened. "No. I don't ever want to touch a gun again!"  
  
"I think it would help-both of us. Take the mystery away from it. Kind of a stepfather-stepson activity."  
  
"You mean father-son," Jamie replied, managing a watery smile, not unlike that of his mother, then sombered. "I dropped the danged gun."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I was looking at it, and I guess I undid the safety or something, then Mom came downstairs and saw me, and I dropped it, and then she fell back and was bleeding, and I didn't know what to do." Tears welled up in his eyes, and Lee put his arms around him.  
  
"We both made a big mistake, cowboy. But mistakes happen." As Lee forgave Jamie he realized he was forgiving himself as well. It's funny how something as simple as a hug from a young boy can change your perspective. "I love you, Jamie. You, your mom, your grandma. You're my family. We're going to get through this together, okay?"  
  
Jamie pulled away and nodded, sniffling. "I love you, too, Lee. You're a great dad."  
  
"Mm Uh Uhv Oof uh Oo."  
  
They guys rushed to Amanda's bed. In spite of the tube down her throat, she was smiling. Lee squeezed her hand, and Jamie leaned over to kiss her cheek.  
  
"We love you, too, Mom."  
  
  
THE END  
  
  
  
  



End file.
